


What the Moon Does to the Devout

by shadowsapiens



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Reconciliation, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22580263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsapiens/pseuds/shadowsapiens
Summary: “I believe I can help them, Felix.” His name in that voice cuts sharper than any sword. Dimitri stares at him, half-blind and inescapable, and asks, “What do you believe in?”
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 21
Kudos: 149
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	What the Moon Does to the Devout

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladylapislazuli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylapislazuli/gifts).



> Happy Chocolate Box, ladylapislazuli! I was beyond thrilled to get this assignment, and I hope you enjoy the fic :)

The cathedral is quiet. Moonlight refracts through broken windows, paints the rubble in silver. Casts a false crown of light around the boar’s head. He’s been standing there for hours, as if he can divine the future from the shape of fallen stones. As if this shattered place holds any more answers than it ever has.

The cathedral used to resound with music. Felix never cared for that, but he wishes for anything to drown out the boar’s constant muttering. The erratic footsteps back and forth. 

Felix is sick of watching, but it seems he too can’t turn away from broken things. He leans against a pillar. The stone is cold against his shoulder. He’s been here for hours, watching the last rays of sunlight give way to shadow. He thinks the boar doesn’t notice him, too distracted by his ghosts, until he turns suddenly, one eye blazing bright. For one dizzying moment, Felix thinks Dimitri sees him.

“The goddess is dead,” Dimitri rasps. “Just like the rest of them.”

Felix’s hand aches for the hilt of his sword. He shouldn’t answer. He should turn around and leave. “It doesn’t matter. None of them matter, now that they’re dead.”

Dimitri laughs, like old bones and new bones rattling across dead earth. “I believe I can help them, Felix.” His name in that voice cuts sharper than any sword. Dimitri stares at him, half-blind and inescapable, and asks, “What do you believe in?”

The cathedral is empty except for them. There is no music. There is no goddess. Dimitri’s right about that. Felix turns on his heel. His answer is quiet and hurts to say: 

“I used to believe in you.”

***

Felix grabs Mercedes after the next battle. “The boar needs a physic.”

Mercedes glances across the wreckage of the field. “Are you sure? Dimitri looks quite all right to me.”

Dimitri stands next to the professor, growling something Felix can’t quite hear. No doubt arguing they should murder the prisoners instead of taking them back, or something equally barbaric. His head is high, his hand steady on his bloodied lance.

But Felix saw the enemy miasma that knocked him backwards, and the way he favored his knee for three entire steps before his animal rage overrode the pain. Dimitri may not feel it anymore, but the injury is there. The knowledge of it stings cold and sharp and unavoidable through Felix’s nerves. Like it’s his own leg aching.

He’d fix it himself if he could, just to stop fucking thinking about it. He knows the basic healing spell. They all do—Byleth was ruthlessly determined they all learn it in their school days. But Felix’s white magic is weak, and he can’t cast from afar. He’s not stupid enough to think Dimitri will let him close enough to touch.

“Believe me or not,” he snaps, so sharply that Mercedes’ closest soldiers bristle in defense of their commander.

Mercedes doesn’t flinch. She just pats him on the shoulder. “That’s very kind of you, Felix. I’ll see to him after I’ve patched up the rest.”

***

One day in the cold depths of the Pegasus Moon, Byleth asks him to stay after the war council. “I’d like to work on white magic with you this week,” she says without preamble. In her firm voice, the ludicrous notion almost sounds sensible.

Felix crosses his arms even so. “You know I’m no good at it, and I’m nearly at a breakthrough with my swordsmanship. I can’t afford distractions.”

Her usual blank expression takes a familiar edge. “Sylvain told me you showed great aptitude for faith as a child.”

“Sylvain’s full of shit.”

“That’s often true.” Byleth shrugs. “But is he wrong about this?”

Sometimes Felix wonders what life would be like without his childhood memories populating every hallway, jumping out at him every time he turns a corner. “That was a long time ago. I preferred the sword, and lost the knack for faith.”

“That’s not how it works.” Her pale green eyes are far too keen. “Did something happen?”

Everything happened. Felix’s life is a diptych and it swings on a single hinge: one day in Duscur, and he wasn’t even there. How can he have faith in anything when his entire world can shatter behind his back?

He’s saved from answering by a messenger running in. Byleth waves him away, but Felix knows the conversation isn’t over.

***

After his father falls at Gronder, it’s Felix’s turn to stand vigil. Only he can’t stand and pace all night like the boar used to. His knees are too weak. He collapses into a pew, off to the side, hidden in shadows. He isn’t the only supplicant, but the priests and soldiers leave him alone.

Night falls. The cathedral empties until all that’s left are shadows and moonlight and broken thoughts all tumbling through his head.

He replays his father’s death over and over, searching for something he could have done to prevent it. Should he have returned faster? Should he have seen the assassin’s intentions in time? Should he have been guarding Dimitri’s back instead?

Could he have healed his father, if he had more faith?

Could he have healed Dimitri, years ago?

Familiar footsteps ring through the cathedral. Felix tenses without lifting his head. He stares determinedly at his own boots as Dimitri draws near. As he stops in the central aisle. As he sits heavily at the far end of the same pew.

All Felix sees is a hint of blue cloak from the corner of his eye. The distance is too much and too little all at once.

His every nerve draws tight as a bowstring. He waits, the tension as rough and hot as thunder building beneath his skin, unreleased and painful. He waits for the boar to say something. To apologize, another fucking apology, another fucking promise to prove himself, to do _better_ , so Felix can fling the words back in his teeth. So he can scream.

But Dimitri doesn’t say anything.

The silence deepens, and the tension eases from Felix shoulders. His hands loosen from their death-grip on the edge of the seat. It’s funny. His head feels quieter now, when all he can think about is Dimitri. 

Minutes pass. More. The silence stretches for long enough that he realizes Dimitri isn’t going to speak first. He’ll sit there all night with him if Felix doesn’t do anything about it. Felix doesn’t know how he feels about that.

His voice is rougher than he likes when he looks up and asks, “What do you want?”

Dimitri’s staring at him. Has been the whole time, probably. Felix isn’t used to such clarity in that single eye. He isn’t used to Dimitri’s hair pulled back and clean. More a man than a monster, now—but still both. There’s a strange expression on his face that Felix can’t quite read. 

If he apologizes again, Felix will stab him.

Dimitri stands up. He moves no closer, but reaches out his hand. “Spar with me, Felix.” It’s not a question. It’s one step away from an order. It’s the last thing Felix expected him to say.

Felix almost says, _fuck off_ , but the words catch in his throat. So instead he stands up. Ignores Dimitri’s hand. He hops over the back of the pew to avoid him, and walks away.

This time, Dimitri follows.

***

The training grounds are dark, lit only by flickering torchlight near the entrance. Felix grabs two training swords and hands one to Dimitri, who doesn’t question the choice of weaponry. Which is good, because Felix doesn’t know whether it’s Dimitri or himself he doesn’t trust with sharp steel right now.

He sets aside his real sword and steps into the ring. The stone feels solid under his heels. “Three,” he says, as Dimitri shrugs off his cloak and takes off his gauntlets. “Two.”

Dimitri stands ten paces away, sword held ready.

“One.”

Felix lunges forward as the word leaves his lips. Dimitri meets him with a parry so strong it rings through Felix’s bones.

He knows how to fight Dimitri. He knows how to dance with the force, to spin sideways and always, always keep moving. But this is different. Dimitri’s never fought like this before. There is certainty in his arms. strength without madness, control without caution. He isn’t holding back. He isn’t falling apart.

He strikes out, twists, nearly pulls Felix’s sword from his hand. Felix’s arms burn already. His lungs burn, so hot that the cold numbness in his chest starts to fracture. Like each strike of Dimitri’s is chipping away something that’s been frozen a long, long time. 

Felix never liked to sing. He never liked to kneel. He prays the same way he says anything true: with his hand on his sword. And at last, Dimitri answers.

He strikes under Dimitri’s blind eye. It’s mean and it’s sloppy and it’s no surprise when Dimitri knocks the blade away. The surprise is the stinging in Felix’s eyes. He retreats, half-skidding on the dusty ground. Barely parries Dimitri’s next strike, and the next.

Another step back. His heel hits the step just before his back hits the pillar. He slams gasping against it. He’s lost his sense of time and space, and he has no chance to recover. A stinging blow knocks the sword from his hand, and then Dimitri’s blade is at his throat.

The cold edge is dull. What flays him open is the desperate clarity in Dimitri’s gaze. 

Felix can’t breathe, and that’s partly due to the impact against the pillar, but mostly due to how fucking close Dimitri is. He’s so tall, he blocks out the whole rest of the room. Like there’s nothing else in the world except the heat of their bodies pressed together, the way Dimitri’s free hand reaches out and brushes the hair back from Felix’s face. His bare fingertips are warm and gentle.

“I swear to you,” Dimitri murmurs, withdrawing his sword, “I will be a better man. For Fodlan. For our friends. For—”

 _Don’t say it_ , Felix wants to beg, but it’s too late. His next breath breaks in his throat, and he can’t stop Dimitri from saying, “you.”

 _Fuck_.

Felix buries his face in Dimitri’s chest before he can see the tears fall, but there’s no hiding the painful, silent sobs. His shoulders shake. Distantly, he hears the sword clatter to the floor.

Dimitri’s arms slowly wrap around him. He’s so unbearably warm and solid, Felix’s knees buckle. Dimitri holds him up for a moment, then sinks gently to the floor with him, and holds him closer. 

He clutches Dimitri’s shirt and cries until his eyes run dry. Dimitri doesn’t say anything. Just strokes his back. Runs his fingers through the ends of his hair. Somehow, it feels okay to fall apart.

***

It’s a small skirmish, interrupting an Imperial supply line. Small but dirty, backroads bleeding into the treeline. The late sun slants steeply through the trees, and the shadows are dark. The clamor and din of battle seems muted here, muffled by trees and the thick earth of the mountainside.

Felix can’t see most of his allies, but he can hear the fray winding to a close. His last opponent slumps at his feet. He takes a moment to breathe, listening and watching for his friends.

There’s a flash of blue, not far away. Felix looks up in time to see the imperial sword sinking through a crack in Dimitri’s armor. 

The moment passes with surreal slowness. Eternity before blood spills over the blade. Eternity again before Dimitri’s lance swings around and kills the lucky soldier. He staggers back and falls against a tree. 

Felix’s throat hurts, but he can’t hear anything. He runs, heedless of the branches clawing at his arms and legs, heedless of everything except Dimitri, slumped on the ground, half in shadow. He’s there in an instant. It feels like forever. His knees thud into the wet earth and he reaches for the sword and the wound and—

Cold gauntlet against his cheek. Felix freezes. Lets Dimitri lift his face up. It’s strange, Felix thinks, dizzy with panic. Even like this, Dimitri is the most beautiful man he’s ever seen. 

“I need to tell you something,” Dimitri says softly, like he’s been hit in the fucking head instead of the stomach.

“Don’t you dare,” Felix says, and yanks the sword out. His hands tremble as he lays them on Dimitri’s side. Closes his eyes and reaches desperately for his magic. He isn’t good enough for this, but he’s the only one here. He has to try.

 _Heal_. He bites back a sob. _Fucking heal, you bastard, fucking_ —

“Felix.” He’s too fucking strong, Felix can’t escape as Dimitri pulls him up, pulls him in. “I believe in you, too,” Dimitri whispers, then presses his lips to his. 

Felix’s concentration shatters.

Coalesces.

Warmth floods through him, and blinding white light. Incandescent moonlight fills his lungs, his blood, and he knows _this_ is what it means to have faith.

The light surges from his heart, through his hands, into Dimitri. A halo of magic, so bright he sees it through his closed eyes. He feels the power pouring from him, more power than he knew he had, piecing together broken flesh. But the magic is only a distant echo of Dimitri’s bloodstained gauntlet cupping the back of his head, fucking up his hair. 

The spell fades, complete. Felix breaks the kiss, leaning back, and becomes aware of a stone digging into his knee. Armor digging into his thigh—Goddess, he’s half in Dimitri’s lap. Felix feels unbearably warm inside, and oh, fuck, he can feel his face growing red. There are faint, familiar voices—he should get up, before anyone—

Dimitri smiles up at him, and Felix forgets everything he’s ever thought in his life. 

“Felix, I—”

“I love you,” Felix snaps, because fuck if Dimitri gets to confess first. But Dimitri’s grin widens anyway, and he opens his mouth, and Felix knows that whatever he says will make him want to kill him.

He has no other choice. He swoops down to kiss Dimitri again, so he can’t say anything else.


End file.
